Prior to joining Griffins, Geraldine practised law for over 20 years as a business trial and restructuring lawyer in the State of California, specialising in insolvency law,. She earned her BA and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California at Berkeley. Geraldine has represented debtors, creditors, and insolvency practitioners throughout her career.
She has served as trial counsel in multiple trials including those involving fraud, contractual disputes, transfers at an undervalue, and preference actions, and has undertaken multiple Chapter 11 reorganisations (administrations), representing debtors-in-possession, creditors’ committees, individual creditors, and insolvency practitioners.
Cases of note include the successful defence of a preference action against a law firm in the In re Enron case and representation of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganisation. During the course of her legal career, she worked for an AmLaw 200 ranked regional law firm on its Ligation and Bankruptcy and Restructuring teams, as in-house counsel for an insolvency practitioner’s firm, and operated her own solo practice law firm.
She served as Chair of the Insolvency Law Committee of the State Bar of California, as a director of the California Bankruptcy Forum and the San Diego Chapter of the Federal Bar Association, Chair of the San Diego Bankruptcy Forum and the San Diego Chapter of the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation (“IWIRC”), and as the Region 9 director of California Women Lawyers. Geraldine was part of the IWIRC delegation to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, Working Group V concerning the enactment of the Model Law on Cross-Border Insolvency and she also served as an adjunct professor at the University of California at San Diego, teaching courses in bankruptcy law as part of its paralegal certificate programme.
Since joining Griffins over 6 years ago, Geraldine has specialised in fraud investigations and liaising with creditors and investors from a variety of jurisdictions. She has extensive experience with fractional leasing frauds and unregulated schemes working alongside government agencies to achieve the best outcome for creditors. Her experience with overseas insolvency proceedings has been invaluable in assisting with cases involving assets and/or parties located in other countries, particularly in the United States.
